Do the Findings of Musicology Help the Performer? 

Siegfried Landau 

I imagine that the aim of musicology and of its relationship to performance 
is the achievement of an "authentic" presentation of a score. However, an 
"authentic" performance is not of necessity identical with a "successful" one. 
To assess the influence of musicological research on my own performances, I 
will first have to clarify the role of the performer and what constitutes a 
"successful" performance. 

I believe that the performer is the interpreter of the composer. The former 
must thoroughly understand the intentions of the latter in a re-creative blend 
of thought and intuition and then let his particular talent be the medium for 
these intentions. Only in this way is a convincing performance possible. The 
composer, whether present himself or represented by musicological findings, 
must not look over the shoulder of the performer in an inhibiting manner. 
The success of the performance is measured by the extent to which the con-
victions of the performer are communicated to the public. 

The re-creative talent of the performer must be constantly stimulated, and 
few data regarding a score are ever irrelevant, since the performer responds 
both consciously and subconsciously to somewhat mysterious stimuli. It is 
here that musicological studies are indispensable. Comparative studies of 
different editions, manuscripts, and sets of parts illuminate questions of 
thematic relationships, of phrasing, of expression marks. The performer wants 
to saturate himself with the ideas of the composer and understand fully the 
latter's objectives. The discovery of slight differences between the initial 
statement of a theme and its reappearance in the recapitulation, variants 
which a study of contemporary orchestral scores reveals as either erroneous or 
definitely desirable, is a very useful product of musicological research. 
Drawing attention to the many sins of omission and writing errors due to 
excessive haste is most helpful, even necessary, to the performer. While these 
studies make the performer look more closely at the score, other studies, such 
as those which explore the performance practices of the composer's era, 
often make the performer more flexible with regard to indications in the music. 
Occasionally, biographical studies may also help to clarify perplexing 
notations. 

Let me illustrate how these musicological studies are utilized by the 
performer. As a conductor, I will discuss orchestral scores; let me begin with 
Mozart's Haffner Serenade, K. 250. The original score is in the Meisterarchiv 
in Vienna. In addition, there is a later score in which the work is reduced 
from an eight-movement serenade to a five-movement symphony (not the 
Haffner Symphony, K. 385) by omitting the second, third, and fourth move-
ments of the original. The source of this version, already used during Mozart's 
lifetime, is the set of sixteen orchestral parts prepared by a copyist and housed 
today in the Prussian State Library in Berlin. A comparison of the two 

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versions discloses discrepancies with regard to the violas, bassoons, oboes, and 
an optional timpani part. These parts contain indications in Mozart's hand-
writing; musicologists therefore believe that they were once in Mozart's own 
library. Here the musicologists' findings have aided immensely in deciding 
which reading to choose, the earlier eight-movement score or the later five-
movement one with Mozart's indications. 

Of great help, too, are the many musicological studies of the performance 
practices of each period. For the performance of Baroque masterpieces, such 
studies provide a wealth of information which permits one to understand the 
intent of the composer without committing oneself to a lifeless imitation of a 
style which functioned under different performing conditions. Questions 
about the role of the cembalo, the size of the orchestra and chorus, figured 
bass, ornaments, and string phrasings are given answers which provide the 
musical imagination with basic stylistic criteria. To attain a stylistically 
"pure" performance seems to me neither possible nor even desirable, for, as 
Nietzsche once said, "The really historical performance would talk to 
ghosts." However, one does learn the "sound" of each style and can decide 
such matters as which editions of Handel's oratorios and operas to utilize, 
whether to accept the Schmitt-Lewicki additions to Mozart's C Minor 
Mass, or how to select from the various endings and additions of the same 
composer's Requiem. The performer must familiarize himself with the per-
formance practices of the Classic era, too, and thus he again seeks musi-
cological guidance. The melodic nakedness of many an andante in Mozart's 
concertos and the thinness of his accompaniments become clearer when we 
learn that these were just outlines which the artist considered a challenge to 
his improvisatory capabilities. 

Here is another example from the Classic era. Some strange dynamic 
markings in Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto become clearer when one 
knows the properties of the piano for which it was written. There is a 
thundering piano solo in the development section of the first movement, 
starting with m. 210. The strings and woodwinds are directed to play softly 
against this, since Beethoven was afraid that the strings would obscure the 
piano. The strings actually develop the main motive, however, and should be 
heard clearly. I thus take this orchestral marking with a large grain of salt 
because the modern grand piano has no difficulty being heard. 

The aesthetics of our time favor a historical consciousness and therefore 
condemn Weingartner's reorchestrations of Beethoven or the various attempts 
to "rescue" the Schumann symphonies by conductors who believe that their 
own ideals of sonority should be superimposed on those of the composers, 
who, in their opinion, either orchestrated poorly or had instruments with 
limitations that no longer exist. I, however, like to hear an orchestral sound 
which reflects the old instrumental limitations, because every great composer 
has used such limitations creatively. 

An example in which the biographical research of musicologists has proven 
to be of immense help to the performer can be seen in Beethoven's Missa 

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Solemnis. In the orchestral score, the quartet sings "Pleni sunt co eli" at m. 84 
in the Sanctus and continues until the Benedictus. The vocal score, however, 
shows the chorus starting at m. 84. In terms of orchestral texture and other 
considerations of balance and textual interpretation, one would think that 
the editor of the vocal score is correct. However, a passage in Schindler's 
biography specifically quotes Beethoven as having weighed the question of 
letting the chorus enter and rejected it in favor of the quartet. Therefore, the 
indications of the orchestral score should be followed. 

The foregoing have been examples of the ways in which I have been aided 
in my musical interpretations by the broad scope of musicological research. 
Yet, all this cultivates only the roots from which a good performance must 
grow. I am a composer myself and have worked with many other composers 
while I was preparing to conduct their works. I have discovered how many 
things they imagined to have put in their scores and how often they mis-
calculated intended effects. The creative spark remains hard to capture in 
print. But I do not see anything tragic in this fact. On the contrary, it is the 
mark of the gifted interpreter to read the signposts of a score and then to 
convey the intent. This gives a performance the subjective stamp which is 
the secret of a good performance. The audience can sense the conviction of a 
performance rooted in knowledge and projected by intuition. Intuition is a 
much maligned word in an era of so-called objectivity, machines, metro-
nomes, and precision. I insist on thorough preparation and sound scholar-
ship, but only as a ritual of physical and mental immersion. The spiritual 
experience of the ritual is what the performer then brings to the performance 
from the well of his sensitivity to the composer's style, his love of and admira-
tion for the score, and the conviction which rational comprehension gives to 
the execution of technical details. 

Nothing takes the place of the intuitive welding of all assembled data 
supplied by musicology. C. P. E. Bach said: "Interpretation is nothing else 
but the capacity to make musical thoughts clear according to their true 
content and affection-whether one sings or plays." The true content of a 
piece is revealed by musicology, but the "affection" must be sensed by the 
performer. How often Arnold Schoenberg wrote at the start of a movement 
that "the metronome markings are not to be taken literally-they merely 
give a suggestion of tempo." And even Stravinsky, who said that conductors 
should be like sergeants whose duty it is to make sure that every musician 
obeys the composer's indication, fluctuated considerably as an interpreter 
when I heard him conduct a score of his own at various times. That is not 
meant as criticism, but rather to point out that Stravinsky as a composer and 
Stravinsky as a performer did not share identical views. 

With the current interest in (often rightfully) forgotten Romantic scores, 
I see a hunger for excitement during a performance in which letter and 
spirit are not identical, and where one inspires the other. In these Romantic 
works much leeway is given to the performer. In fact, the "objective" 
approach to performance was in a large measure a reaction to the exaggerated 

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view of the virtuoso. However, this reaction has reached unreasonable 
proportions. An element of unpredictability must be left to the performers, in 
order that something "extra" can coalesce during the concert, once the 
technical details have been thoroughly assimilated. 

Musicology takes care of these technical details for me; it clarifies them or 
at least poses them as questions to which interpretive answers can be given 
intelligently. Then the performer in me can truly function, even though a 
critic might later disagree with some of my interpretive solutions to prob-
lematic spots. 

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